Prince Adrien Valedryn read hunger the way most nobles read weather.

  As numbers.

  As columns.

  As something unfortunate that arrived and passed, sometimes with damage, sometimes without-never as a hand around the throat of a child.

  He had not meant to be that kind of man. He told himself that as he stood at the tall window of the council antechamber and watched the city below brighten with morning light. Roofs caught gold. The river flashed. Smoke rose in thin lines, orderly from this distance.

  From up here, the lower wards looked like a slightly dirtier pattern of streets.

  From up here, you could almost forget the smell of bark boiled in water.

  A servant approached behind him and stopped at a careful distance, as if space were a law. “Your Highness,” the man murmured.

  Adrien did not turn. “Yes.”

  “The Chancellor’s clerk has arrived with the morning briefs.”

  Adrien exhaled slowly and nodded. “Send him in.”

  The servant retreated.

  Adrien’s fingers rested on the window frame. The stone was cold, even in spring. He pressed his thumb against it as if cold could anchor him.

  Outside, a bell rang somewhere in the city-temple cadence, measured. Another answered, uneven, too fast. He didn’t know which was real alarm and which was custom anymore. Since the star wept, every sound carried an edge.

  He tried not to look east.

  He failed.

  If he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, he could see it even in daylight: a faint pale streak in the blue, like a scratch on glass. The Weeping Star’s wound. The palace astronomers called it a rare celestial phenomenon. The priests called it a warning. The markets called it whatever made people buy faster.

  Adrien’s father-King Roderic-had called it “noise.”

  Let the people have their stories, the king had said, dismissing it with a tired wave. Stories keep them from looking too hard at the real problems.

  Adrien used to believe that was wisdom.

  Now he wasn’t sure whether it had been wisdom or cowardice.

  The door opened.

  Chancellor Orric’s clerk entered with a stack of documents cradled in both arms. He was a narrow man with ink-stained fingers and a jaw that looked permanently clenched. He bowed, deep enough to scrape dignity off the floor.

  “Your Highness,” he said. “Apologies for the hour.”

  “Sit,” Adrien said, and then realized how strange it sounded to invite a clerk to sit in a room meant for lords. He corrected himself quickly. “Stand. Just… present them.”

  The clerk’s eyes flicked up, surprised by the slip. He looked away immediately, as if looking at Adrien too directly might be punished later by someone else.

  Adrien felt a familiar tightness in his chest.

  Everything around him was performance now. Even kindness had to be measured for what it might imply.

  The clerk laid the top report on the table.

  Adrien crossed the room and sat at the polished wood desk that had once been his father’s favorite place to make other men sweat. The desk was carved with crowned flame motifs and old victory scenes. It had been built to hold power, not paper.

  Adrien unfolded the first report.

  GRAIN STORES: Eastern Ward-Shortfall 11%.

  CAUSE: Transport Disruption, Minor Theft, Market Panic.

  ACTION: Redistribution Orders Pending.

  He read the words twice.

  “Eleven percent,” Adrien murmured.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” the clerk said, hands clasped. “The numbers are… manageable.”

  Adrien’s gaze lifted. “Manageable for whom?”

  The clerk’s mouth tightened. “For the city,” he said carefully.

  Adrien looked back at the report.

  Eleven percent. Manageable. Pending redistribution.

  He had learned these terms as a boy. They were the language of rule. They were supposed to keep the realm stable. He had never thought of them as a way to make starvation sound like a minor inconvenience.

  He flipped to the next report.

  WATCH INCIDENTS: East Market-Two Disturbances. One Assault. One Detainment for Panic-Spreading.

  CAUSE: Rumors of hoarding and mill loss.

  RECOMMENDATION: Increase visible watch presence. Discourage rumor circulation.

  Adrien’s fingers tightened on the paper.

  Rumors of hoarding and mill loss.

  He thought of the servants’ kitchen scraps he’d seen yesterday-two women in livery fighting quietly over the heel of bread they were allowed to take after dinner. They hadn’t noticed him in the corridor’s shadow. He had watched long enough to feel sick and then walked away because a prince intervening in servant scraps would become a story in the wrong mouths.

  He had hated himself for walking away.

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  Adrien turned the page again.

  TEMPLE RELIEF: Requests exceed supplies. Protocol adjustments enacted to preserve stability.

  NOTES: Sister Maelin requests expanded allotment. Administrator Lewin declines; recommends discipline.

  Adrien’s eyes paused on the name.

  Lewin.

  He had met the administrator twice. The man smiled like a priest and spoke like a lawyer. He always managed to make cruelty sound like stewardship.

  “Sister Maelin,” Adrien repeated quietly.

  The clerk nodded. “A junior relief sister. Earnest. She is… compassionate.”

  Adrien glanced up. “Compassion is not a flaw.”

  The clerk’s eyes flickered. “No, Your Highness,” he said, though his tone suggested compassion was something best managed.

  Adrien set the report down slowly.

  “Where is my father?” he asked.

  The clerk’s shoulders stiffened. “The king remains… indisposed,” he said, choosing the word like a shield. “The physicians advise rest.”

  Rest.

  His father had been resting for weeks now, drifting in and out of fevered sleep, waking only long enough to curse the pain and demand that politics stop banging on his door.

  It was as if the crown itself had grown too heavy for his neck.

  Adrien looked down at the papers again, suddenly angry.

  Not at his father-he couldn’t afford that.

  At everyone else.

  At men who wrote “discipline” while children grew thin. At councils who called theft “minor” as if starvation had polite proportions. At a palace that still served meat at dinners while markets fought over grain dust.

  “Who signed the redistribution orders?” Adrien asked.

  The clerk blinked. “They’re pending-”

  “Who drafted them?” Adrien pressed.

  The clerk swallowed. “Treasury Advocate Renn,” he said. “In consultation with-”

  “With whom?” Adrien’s voice sharpened.

  The clerk’s gaze darted toward the door as if expecting someone to be listening. “Temple Administrator Lewin,” he said quietly. “And an Argent Oath logistics office liaison.”

  Adrien felt something tighten deep in his chest.

  The Argent Oath was supposed to be the realm’s shield. Logistics was supposed to be carts and routes and ledgers. If those were compromised, then hunger wasn’t only a consequence.

  It was a weapon.

  Adrien’s fingers pressed into the paper hard enough to crease it.

  The clerk cleared his throat nervously. “Your Highness, if you’re concerned, the council will address it at-”

  “At the next session,” Adrien finished, bitter. “After another week. After more riots. After more ‘manageable’ losses.”

  He stood abruptly, chair legs scraping.

  The clerk flinched as if expecting a blow.

  Adrien forced himself to exhale. He wasn’t angry at the clerk. The clerk was a messenger in a world that punished messengers for delivering the wrong truth.

  “Where is the relief hall ledger?” Adrien asked.

  The clerk blinked. “Your Highness?”

  “The one that shows allocations,” Adrien said. “Not the summary. The raw ledger.”

  The clerk hesitated. “That’s… temple property.”

  Adrien stared at him. “It’s my kingdom.”

  The clerk’s mouth opened, then closed. He shifted. “I can request-”

  “Don’t request,” Adrien said. “Bring it.”

  The clerk’s face went pale. “Your Highness, Administrator Lewin will-”

  “Let him.” Adrien’s voice was quieter now, but harder. “I want to see the truth behind the ink.”

  The clerk bowed, shaky. “As you command,” he whispered.

  Adrien turned away before he could see his own fear reflected in another man’s eyes.

  He crossed to the window again.

  Down in the city, a line of people moved along the grain terraces like ants. Even from this height, he could see how thin many of them were-how their steps dragged, how their shoulders hunched as if the air itself weighed too much.

  He wondered how many had eaten bark this week.

  He wondered how many had stolen.

  He wondered how many had been beaten for it.

  A soft knock sounded behind him.

  He didn’t turn. “Yes?”

  A different servant entered this time-one Adrien recognized. Old Kellan, who had served his mother before his mother died. Kellan’s hair was white now. His hands shook faintly as he held a small tray.

  “Your Highness,” Kellan murmured. “A bite, if you please.”

  Adrien looked at the tray.

  Bread. White bread. Soft, fresh. A small dish of honey. A wedge of cheese. More food than some families saw in a week.

  His stomach twisted.

  “Kellan,” Adrien said quietly, “why is there honey?”

  Kellan blinked, startled. “Because… because you like it, Your Highness.”

  Adrien stared at it. He thought of Pell in the relief hall, fevered and thin. He thought of Kerr-he didn’t know the name, but he could picture the kind of child under carts. He thought of the mother offering herself for coin. He thought of the way the word “manageable” sat on paper like an insult.

  He looked back at Kellan.

  Kellan’s eyes were soft with worry. “You haven’t been eating,” the old man said.

  Adrien’s throat tightened. “And you have?”

  Kellan flinched. “Your Highness-”

  “It’s a question,” Adrien said gently. “Have you been eating?”

  Kellan’s mouth worked. He glanced down. “Yes,” he lied.

  Adrien saw the lie immediately-the slight hesitation, the too-fast answer. The faint hollowness at the man’s cheeks that hadn’t been there last season. Even palace servants were stretching rations now.

  Adrien felt something in him break-not the kind of break that destroyed, but the kind that made room for a new shape.

  He reached for the bread and tore it in half.

  Kellan’s eyes widened.

  Adrien held out the larger piece. “Eat,” he said.

  Kellan stared as if being offered food by a prince was a foreign language. “Your Highness, I-”

  “Eat,” Adrien repeated, and this time there was command in it.

  Kellan’s hands trembled as he took the bread. He bowed his head and ate quickly, eyes shining with humiliation and gratitude both.

  Adrien swallowed against the tightness in his throat.

  He set the remaining half back on the tray untouched.

  “Tell the kitchens,” Adrien said quietly, “to reduce excess at the next meal. No honey. No sweets. No-” He hesitated. The palace wasn’t a ration line. Symbolic gestures could become empty theater if not paired with action. But symbols mattered too. “No waste.”

  Kellan nodded, blinking hard. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “And Kellan,” Adrien added, voice low, “if you hear anything from the lower wards-anything about missing people, strange offers, men moving in shadows-bring it to me.”

  Kellan’s eyes widened. Fear flashed there. “Your Highness…”

  Adrien met his gaze. “Bring it,” he said.

  Kellan bowed deeply and retreated.

  Adrien stood alone again, staring out at the city.

  The Weeping Star’s pale scar hovered faintly in the eastern sky like a cut that refused to close.

  Adrien didn’t know yet whether the star was a warning from the gods, a crack in the world, or simply a sign that people were desperate enough to see omens in anything.

  What he knew-what the papers could no longer hide-was that his kingdom was starving.

  And if hunger could be managed like a ledger, it could also be exploited like a weapon.

  Somewhere below, a relief sister was fighting bureaucracy with a pen. Somewhere below, a common-born trainee knight was fighting cruelty with his hands. Somewhere below, shadow men were offering bread and taking names.

  Adrien’s fingers tightened on the window frame.

  He had thought inheritance was the heaviest thing he would carry.

  He was beginning to understand that the real weight of a throne was not gold.

  It was the bodies beneath it.